Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway is a breath of fresh air on Saturdays

Finally Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway is back meaning that something entertaining and worthwhile is back on our television screens on Saturday nights to blast away the talent show induced coma, and this time it’s the most chaotic, messiest and best it has ever been.

Live television is always frought with peril, but this a television show that frankly laughs in the face of that ‘anything-can-happen’ worry and actively encourages it, putting Michelle Keegan in the announcer booth, Gogglebox and I’m a Celebrity star Scarlett Moffatt in a helicopter, Steven Mulhern in a cannon, Ant and Dec in those viral T-Rex outfits and Mickey Mouse dancing next to little Ant and Dec in a plane.

And yes, predictably things went horribily wrong almost consistantly throughout. Right at the start Ant forgot his words and Steven Mulhern was supposed to be ‘shot out of a cannon’ but the smoke effect didn’t cover it up properly, Scarlett Moffatt couldn’t find anyone as she roamed around the street pointing at cats so just started knocking on doors, a lady very clearly swore after winning a trip to Disneyland to name just a few.

There was no cynicism, no sob-story, no manufactured drama like I’ve come to expect on Saturday night prime-time television. Instead there was pure magical silliness as Ant and Dec banter about trying to make this ridiculous live show work, whilst taking a break out from presenting to race eachother dressed as T-Rex’s in a game of ‘The Floor is Lava’.

Not to mention the sheer brilliance and cringe-worthiness of ‘Who shot Simon Cowell’ continuing with Emilia Fox from the brilliant Silent Witness, hiding in a painting of a horse to get Ant and Dec’s attention after they get given their OBE’s. If that doesn’t sound like your kind of thing then are you even really living?

Okay, so there’s a slight amount of hyperbole here, but I genuinely like Ant and Dec and Saturday Night Takeaway because, unlike a lot of stuff that makes its way onto television nowadays it’s simple, light-hearted, doesn’t take itself seriously and above all else makes me smile, and that really isn’t something that should be taken for granted!